Rotary-supported film debuts

A film that was completed with the support of the Rotary Club of Scituate will be shown at the 2009 Rotary World Peace Symposium in Birmingham, England.

"Unexpected Openings: Northern Ireland Prisoners," a documentary made by students in a film class headed by Boston College Professor John Michalczyk, will be shown Thursday, as part of a two-day conference.

The Scituate club has supported the work of Michalczyk and his students in films that focus on conflicts in Northern Ireland, Kosovo, the Middle East, South Africa, Sicily, and Russia. Some of these films were screened in 2006 at the Scituate Film Festival and at the Rotary District 7950 Conference held in Plymouth.

In 2008, the Rotary Club of Scituate arranged for Raymond Helmick, a conflict studies scholar at Boston College and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C., to screen and discuss some of these films at the Rotary Peace and Conflict Studies Center in Bangkok, Thailand.

Additionally, the films will be used in a conflict-transformation program in Kenya initiated by the Rotary Club of Scituate. That program is being coordinated by Boston College, the Hakimani Center in Kenya, Rotary District 9200 in Africa, and other groups in Kenya.

The Rotary Club of Scituate is currently supporting development of a conflict studies curriculum coordinated by Michalczyk and Helmick.